Spicebush is the shrub that tells you the ground is good. Early land surveyors in the eastern states used Lindera benzoin as an indicator of rich agricultural soil, and the rule holds in the garden: where spicebush thrives, most things will. The plant is a common understory shrub of moist, rich woods from Ontario to Florida and west to Texas, growing six to twelve feet in a loose rounded mass, often colonial from root sprouts, and every part smells of citrus and pepper when bruised.
This quietly handsome evergreen has grown well for years in the Woodlanders garden here in Aiken, South Carolina, holding a place in semi-shade where many broadleaf evergreens sulk. The spicebush earns a spot on foliage alone: glossy, leathery leaves, roughly heart-shaped and about three inches across, each marked by three bold veins, with new growth flushing a soft bronze before deepening to green.
Hardiness
Zones 8–9
Light
Full Sun / Part Shade / Full Shade
Height
6–10 ft.
Spread
4–6 ft.
Bloom
Yellow
Plant type
Shrub
Traditional use
digestive health, pain relief, reproductive health
An evergreen spicebush is a rare thing, and Lindera akoensis is one of the best. Woodlanders grew this shrub from cuttings taken in the garden of Bobby Green of Green's Nursery in Fairhope, Alabama, shared simply as an evergreen Lindera from Taiwan. The plant matches the botanical description of Lindera akoensis, a species of low mountain woodland in Taiwan, and has proven a handsome, glossy-leaved evergreen for the southern garden.
Lindera fragrans is an evergreen shrub or small tree carrying glossy, leathery, narrowly lance-shaped leaves that look more like bamboo than like anything in the laurel family, each one marked with three clear veins running the length of the blade. The effect is light and linear where most broadleaf evergreens are heavy, and the foliage alone is worth the space. Growth is upright to around twelve or fifteen feet with a narrow six-foot spread, and the bark is a quiet yellow-brown.
Lindera megaphylla is a plant for the patient collector, a broad-leaved evergreen of real presence and pedigree that reveals itself over seasons rather than days. The species comes from the mist-laden mountain forests of western China, where the shrub grows in dappled light among rhododendrons and ancient oaks. Sir Harold Hillier, the great British plantsman, first shared this rarity with Western gardens in the 1970s from his famous nursery, and even now the Chinese spicebush remains uncommon in cultivation.
